The Minutemen

There's a meme on the internet of a smiling character with sunglasses and a grin, behind him is a wall of text repeating an endless looping phrase "when you fund a terrrorist group to get rid of the terrorist you funded to get rid of the terrorist you funded to get rid of the terrorist you funded to get rid of the terrorist you funded to...." ad infinitum. 

Such is the case with proxy wars. When a group doesn't want to get their hands dirty, they arm and train and pay a cadre of killers to kill the group they oppose, but indoctrinating them to their beliefs is usually a tertiary concern in wartime, not to mention almost totally unfeasible. And seeing that they're not looking to pay their pensions once the war's done, there's no "swords-to-plowshares" and they find more war. Not out of bald bloodlust, but now they have the tools to affect meaningful change through the most direct means possible - through violence. 

Proxy wars and their run-off have plagued America for decades. It's a lesson the pentagon never fully learn (because they're rarely the ones to pay the price for it). The secret societies and conspiracies of the world of Delta Green are no different. In the case of the Minutemen, this mistake has been repeated. 

The Minutemen is a small-scale faction for you to hurl at your players in a 90s campaign, and can be a evolving, persiting threat for your players to encounter on operas as the years persist. 

History

The Minutemen were conceived of in 1996 by Dr. Albert Yrjo, the leader researcher of OUTLOOK Group and Majestic-12's brainwasher-in-chief. The concept was for a group that would mirror Delta Green in mission and structure, with the purpose either being that Delta Green would look to recruit certain members and thereby compromise the conspiracy, or they would reject the group and become hostile. Although Yrjo and his superiors in the Majestic Steering Committee dreamed up some "best-case-scenarios" for the Minutemen, ultimately, to Yrjo, they were just another experiment. Monitoring how Delta Green reacted to another group with the same goals and structure as them would prove equally as enlightening in Yrjo's quest to understand the insular conspiracy. 

Minutemen were a motley bunch, hand-picked from some UFO conspiracy theorists who had run afoul of NRO DELTA, and some U.S Military personnel who had been given OUTLOOK treatments in the past. A "creation myth" of the conspiracy, involving UFOs and other strangeness, was concocted, and the first three cells of the Minutemen were dispersed, operating in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Alaska. They would pursue UFO sightings and reports of cryptids, subconsciously programmed to look for the signs of Delta Green activity and gravitate towards them. 

Personnel

Most Minutemen are militia types that are "recruited" by the Minutemen for their cause. The Minutemen work in cells, and the Minutemen operate a maximum of 13 Cells codenamed by each of the 13 original colonies of the United States. The only Minuteman who has received OUTLOOK "treatment" is the cell leader, in this case called an "Officer". Becoming an Officer of the Minutemen involves attending a meeting where the recruits are drugged, kidnapped, and "programmed" by OUTLOOK over a matter of months before they're returned to their homes with false memories and other evidence to justify their absence. Loners are preferred as covering up the week-long absence in which OUTLOOK works its magic is easier. Most Minutemen are former military and law enforcement, some are UFO conspiracy theorists.

Evolution

One of the primary themes of the Minutemen is evolution. As your agents fight the Minutemen, they are changed by the things they do and see. In the 1990s, Delta Green encounters the Minutemen in earnest. They're militia-types and UFO nuts who binge watched Phenomen-X and Ancient Aliens. A-Cell writes them off as quacks and untrustworthy and orders Delta Green not to interact with the Minutemen. Canny agents might notice them following the agents. 

The Minutemen obsess over the agents and follow them even outside of Operas, and will follow them while doing assignments not related to the Greys. They're persistent and difficult to shake off short of using violent force or threats or siccing the authorities on them. 

As the Minutemen's obsession and stalking of the agents isn't something they understand why they do it, other then they suspect the agents know something more or are involved in "the conspiracy" i.e the Illuminati. They will mirror the agents in investigating whatever weird thing is going on that the agents happen to be investigating.

Dogs With No Leash

By 2001 and the conclusion of the Majestic war, no new Minutemen Officers are recruited, or at least, no new ones are sent to OUTLOOK to be brainwashed, as OUTLOOK's facilities are destroyed. The group begins operating on its own, its leaders subconsciously following the brainwashing given to them by Majestic years prior. This is when the group really begins to spiral out 

Infected by Understanding

As the Minutemen pursue leads, its only a matter of time before they see something they shouldn't have. This process can begin before 2001 and the collapse of Majestic, but will accelerate once OUTLOOK Group is dissolved and Majestic loses its ability to wipe the memories of their pawns. These incidents can occur from the Minuteman doing their own operations or while sabotaging a Delta Green opera. Here are a few examples of things they can encounter. 

The Nephilim

The Minuteman are directed by their masters in the OUTLOOK Group to investigate suspected Delta Green activity in the plains of rural Oklahoma. Delta Green have been sent out to investigate strange sightings of giant, glowing men and odd lights. The Minutemen end up intervening while Delta Green are attempting a ritual to sever a metaphyiscal connection between an ancient menhir and the lightless realm of K'n-Yan. 

Whether Delta Green is annihilated or executes a tactical retreat, the Minutemen are left at the menhir, and are greeted by one of the K'n-Yani, beckoned to the earth by the release of psychic energy from the sudden rash of death and violence.

Those surviving Minutemen gawk in awe at the giants. A few are maybe taken to K'n-Yan to be experimented on or kept as pets. Perhaps they have their minds probed by the K'n-Yani, eager to learn the secrets of the surface world. 

The experience leaves the Minutemen with a new understanding and obsession. The Minutemen present at the Oklahoma shoot-out may become zealous cultists of Tsathoggua, and will begin scouring the Occult Underground for a method of calling the Sleeper of N'Kai and contacting the K'n-Yani. Perhaps a few from the Oklahoma shootout return to earth, having been taught the secrets of the K'n-Yani in their cthonian lair and released to earth for an unknown purpose. They possess the K'n-Yani abilities to phase out of reality, manipulate human perception and thought, and telepathy. 

Depending on how quickly Delta Green responds, there may be an opportunity to nip the outbreak of understanding in the bud before it spreads. If they wait too long, they might quickly find cults of Tsathoggua spreading through the militia movement like malignant cancer. 

The God-Stone

The Minutemen are deployed by Majestic to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Majestic have been studying ghost lights and strange mutations in the people of this polluted and impoverished area. The Minutemen have been deployed as a measure to keep an ear to the ground for Delta Green activity. 

Little does Minutemen or their masters know, the area of the RGV they are residing is under the influence of a Lloigor that has recently stirred. The Majestic research is slow-going and fraught with setbacks, Catalyst-enhanced NRO DELTA and BLUE FLY personnel experience random, catastrophic failures of their biological and cybernetic enhancements. More to the point, the Minutemen find themselves experiencing hideous mutant cancers, horrific dreams, suicides, and finally, enslavement to the Lloigor. 

The Minutemen Lloigor-Cult quickly metastasizes, and Majestic alarmed to learn that the group has mustered excess militiamen to the area without their direction. They're even more alarmed to learn that they're performing some occultic initiation on their members - those that resist are clubbed to death and buried in a shallow grave. They might order cells across the country to sever communication to the RGV branch and either move to resolve the issue, or potentially leak the incident to Delta Green to study how the group responds. 

The Eaters of the Dead

A Minuteman operation in New York or New Orleans comes across those city's resident ghoul-cults. Most of the Minutemen die screaming, a select few escape burdened by understanding. 

Those select few Minutemen begin experimenting with ghoul rituals and cannibalism, a few may have accepted marks of Mordiggian or Nyogtha and are slowly transforming into ghouls automatically. They become withdrawn from the group, eventually vanishing. Investigations of their residences find evidence of a violent, bloody metamorphosis. 

Months later, other cells of the Minutemen sever communications, a few drop off the map entirely. A Majestic hit-team neutralizes a member that faked succuming to OUTLOOK hypnosis and attempted to rend apart their handlers with...claws?

The Minutemen project might be abandoned entirely, with OUTLOOK hypnosis phrases disseminated to cells ordering them to dissolve and return to OUTLOOK for deprogramming. Majestic researches the mutant Minutemen, examining them alongside the Greys, attempting to reverse engineer their biology for military applications. Those few Minutemen that avoid the purges become a militant cult of the ghouls. If their point of contact was in New Orleans, they potentially become a sycophantic ghoul-cult beholden to the DeMonte Clan. If their point of contact was in New York, they potentially turn to accept the faith of Mordiggian and join the Keepers of the Faith, or they end up replenishing the feverish ranks of the Heretics. Maybe they do one, then the other. 

Retalliation

Of course, it will be a matter of time before Delta Green gets involved. So how does the shadowy conspiracy's intervention against the Minutemen change the group?

Decapitation

Delta Green identifies "leaders" or "high priority targets". This might be the actual cell leaders of the Minutemen or simply the ones that have been touched by the unnatural and are leading new guard of mutants and madmen. 

At best, the elimination of these leaders causes the group to fizzle out, as the group is deprived either of the charisma necessary to maintain morale, or the "unnatural knowledge" to guide the group towards the veneration of the Great Old Ones. What's more likely, however, is that the group persists. Eliminating all of its leaders involves 1. identifying them and 2. successfully killing them, and that assumes no one else is there to take command afterwards. The Minutemen may be galvanized to pursue a retalliation campaign against the agents involving harassment, robberies, even assassination attempts. Attempts may be made to recover the arcane secrets of the leadership through careful study of tomes left behind, or artifacts in their possession. Leaders that survive the decapitation (perhaps even impossibly) might become lionized at the Minuteman's messianic leaders. Who knows. 

Sic 'em!

Of course, a national scale militia that targets and harasses federal agents is exactly the sort of group the ATF would just love to rake over the coals. Your agents might decide to play it straight, and build a case against the Minutemen are present it to federal law enforcement. 

A crackdown by the FBI and ATF paralyzes the group. OUTLOOK directs cells to cease illegal activity and to destroy evidence of involvement with Majestic. 

Of course, these orders might just be ignored. A Minuteman might think "today's the day" and decide to greet the cadre of ATF agents disembarking from an APC with a PPK light machinegun. A Waco-style shootout blossoming out of control can be a double-edged sword, as even though the Minutemen might be eliminated, they become martyrs, mythologized by the wider right-wing militia enthusiasts. This might just cause Minutemen copycats to crop up elsewhere years later, although it could mean a later rediscovery of the group's dark secrets. 

Cleanup

Post-Schism, canny agents might put it together and realize what's happening. An new option presents itself to resolve the issue using "the master's tools", as they say. This route is more likely for Program agents, though it could be pursued by Outlaws (though with greater difficulty). 

Most of the Minutemen were subjected to OUTLOOK Group brainwashing, and each was assigned a psychological kill-phrase, a series of words that will induce a psychological reaction that will incude a stroak or heart attack in the witness. The issue, of course, is that the two OUTLOOK facilities operated by Majestic were totalled during the secret war, and most of the surviving OUTLOOK documents are hidden under extreme classification. 

Agents would need to beggar their masters for access to the OUTLOOK kill phrases, though it might prove to be worth it, as the utterance of the kill phrases over the phone will kill the Minutemen in ways that could never be traced back to the players directly. 

Of course, its getting those phrases that's the hard part.